About six years ago we started to record my sermons to include in our homebound ministry, “HomeTouch” so that our members who could no longer make it to church were never cut off from church family life and gospel preaching. It was about three years later that we started to think about uploading the recordings to the church’s website but were limited in space and costs to expand were prohibitive. No longer.

I spent about 40 minutes last night creating a podcast site with buzzsprout.com that could be linked to the blog and embedded in the church’s website at no cost to them. The podcast has received approval from iTunes. The updates may take a day or two to appear unless you subscribe. I’ve put a link to iTunes and buzzsprout, the feed source, in the Blogroll to the right.

I have no plans of using video recordings in the podcast. My years on a local BBC Radio’s Pause for Thought and the training I received has me convinced that sound only is the best medium for a sermon as sound incorporates the listeners while the video image isolates the observers.

In bringing the two together it seemed a good time to create a new title for both. “A Reformed Way” is a good choice. One of the enduring Latin phrases of the Protestant Reformation is the important: ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbi dei, which translates, “reformed and always being reformed according to the Word of God.” Reform, where it is advocated, must find its grounding in Scripture alone as its final authority.

Using the motto to back up any and all “innovations” would be a misuse of the original intent and is a lesson for my denomination that sees “new-as-better-work-of-the-Spirit” thereby overturning the very Reformation principle of its own DNA.

Another potential misuse of the phrase is lodged in a common mistranslation as “reformed and always reforming.” This can mislead us to believe that the church is the agent of its own reformation. God is the agent of reformation. The church is rather the object of God’s reforming work.

We confess that we “hold these treasures in earthen vessels.” Recognizing how deep our sinfulness dwells, we continually submit to be reformed according to the Word of God. The church is a fallible pilgrim people.

So, pilgrim, welcome back to the journey toward The Celestial City...